Bob Marley of the Wailers. A new documentary highlights the 60th anniversary celebration of his birth that took place in Ethiopia in 2005.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
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Bob Marley, Pan-Africanism and the Struggle for World Peace
60th anniversary celebrations confirm the legacy of the late
international poet and superstar
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire
February 6, 2005, represents the 60th anniversary of the
birth of the late Robert Nesta Marley who was born in the
Caribbean island-nation of Jamaica in 1945.
The year of Marley's birth was also the same as the
conclusion of World War II, a period which ushered in the
contemporary struggle of Africans and other oppressed peoples
to emancipate themselves from the shackles of colonialism,
apartheid, institutional racism and minortiy rule.
In October of 1945, the Fifth Pan-African Congress was held
in Manchester, England, where activists such as George
Padmore of Trinidad, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana-Africa and W.E.B.
Dubois of the United States came together to map out an
international campaign aimed at national independence and
socialism.
By 1947 Nkrumah was back in Ghana after 12 years as a student
and activist in the United States and the UK. Only tens years
later, 1957, he stood before the people of Ghana on the eve
of their hard won independence and declared that "the
independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with
the total independence of the African continent."
At the beginning of the 1960s inside the United States,
thousands of African-American students were taking an
increasingly militant stance against segregation and the
disenfranchisement of their people nearly 100 years after the
legal abolition of slavery. This movement, which became
known as the struggle for civil rights, influenced not only
developments in America, but throughout the world. Those who
saw that the sons and daughters of former slaves could
effectively take a stand against centuries-old injustice and
exploitation knew they could affect change in their own geo-
political regions.
Bob Marley emerged from the independence struggles of the
Caribbean during the 1950s and 1960s, where the legacies of
Paul Bogle, Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques-Garvey, C.L.R. James,
Fidel Castro and others provided inspiration to a new
generation of activists and artists who sought with
impatience to rapidly liberate their people from national
oppression.
Although Marley never declared himself a politician or
prophet, his music was very much reflective of the times. It
inspired the people to not only recognize the continuation of
the struggle for liberation and social justice but to take up
the international call to reverse the social processes of
colonialism and neo-colonialism. He adopted the Rastafari
faith which emphasized the philosphy of Marcus Garvey and the
deification of Haile Selassie I as symbols of the resistance
of African peoples to white world supremacy and hegemony.
For a people in the Caribbean who had been stolen from their
African homeland during the period of slavery from the 15th
to the 19th centuries, to place the identification with
Africa and its liberation and unity as the primary
ideological point of departure, clearly signalled that the
propaganda of the global elites had not totally obliterated
the social consciousness and national will of the oppressed.
Bob Marley and the Pan-African Struggle
Marley's identification with Africa through the Rastafari
movement coupled with a keen awareness of political
developments during the 1960s, served to inspire the
character and tone of his music. In addition, the impact of
the African-American struggle for civil rights and black
power influenced political currents in the Caribbean.
It was in the United States during the 1920s that the
Jamaican born Marcus Garvey settled and gained his most
significant support and organizational base. Garvey's
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) recruited
millions of members and supporters in the US and played a
monumental role in changing the character of the social
consciousness during the post World War I period.
The so-called "Harlem Renaissance" of the post World War I
period intersected with Garveyism in the quest for cultural
awareness among the African people. During the same time
period, the activist scholarship of Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
the founder of Black History Week, later named Black History
Month, and the work of W.E.B. Dubois, enhanced the
intellectual capital of the African peoples arming them with
the knowledge they would need to carry on the fight for
freedom.
After the deportation of Garvey from the United States on
trumped-up charges in 1927, the struggle for pan-africanism
would continue through the work of George Padmore who
utilized the international workers movement to study and
organize the people aimed at the destruction of colonialism.
C.L.R. James would chronicle the Haitian Revolution of the
19th century as an act of intellectual independence and to
illustrate the relationship between the struggle of the
slavery era and that of the mid-twentieth century. He would
then draw a nexus between all struggles waged by the African
peoples whether they be in the United States, the Caribbean
or the African continent. All of these popular revolts were
interconnected and would lead to a global movement that
changed the course of human history and consciousness.
A further illustration of the pan-african character of the
emergence of Marley, reggae and the rastafari movement as a
social force is marked by the influence of US-based popular
musicians such as Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield and the
Impressions, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Berry Gordy on
the young emerging artists of Jamaica.
When Stokely Carmichael, who had Trinidadian roots,
popularized the black power slogan in 1966, it had a profound
impact on the youth of the Caribbean. By 1968 Jamaica would
see the emergence of its own black rebellion under neo-
colonialism. Guyanese-born scholar-activist Walter Rodney
would be forced to leave Jamaica and return to Tanzania in
1968. In 1970 this black power movement would manifest itself
throughout the Caribbean with mass revolt and the call for
genuine liberation outside the ideological sphere of America
and the United Kingdom.
By the 1970s the African liberation movements were in full
force. A campaign of solidarity would emerge as a dominant
political tendency in the United States and the Caribbean.
The youth of South Africa in 1976 through their popular
protests and rebellion would enhance pan-african solidarity
and global support for majority rule throughout the sub-
continent. This same year Bob Marley and Wailers released
the legendary album "Rastaman Vibration."
On this LP the song "War" caught the attention of the youth
of the western hemisphere and the world. This song included
the words of a speech delivered by the then late Emperor
Haile Selassie some years before at the United Nations. "We
Africans will fight, we find it necessary...," Marley said.
By 1980 a major victory had been won in the struggle for
national independence in Zimbabwe. Marley had released
the "Survival" album in 1979 which included the song
"Zimbabwe" that championed the armed struggle of the
Patriotic Front as the real revolutionaries who deserved the
global support of the people. Marley would travel to
Zimbabwe for the independence celebration in 1980, a
milestone in his performance career being highlighted as the
principle artist exemplifying the world's solidarity with the
peoples of southern Africa.
Marley's Legacy and the Struggle for World Peace
The eradication of direct colonialism and apartheid in Africa
by 1994 represented the culmination of the movement towards
liberation that intensified after the 1945 Pan-African
Congress at Manchester. Despite these victories the
imperialist powers would seek new avenues of domination and
exploitation.
The first Gulf War of 1991 ushered in a new phase of
imperialist war and hegemony. With the massive bombing of
Iraq, the occupation of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by the United
States military, the lines were being drawn for the
international forces of anti-colonialism and liberation.
America's occupation of Somalia in 1992-93 was met with
massive resistance forcing their unconditional withdrawl.
During the 1990s hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would die as
a result of the draconian economic sanctions imposed upon
them by the United Nations at the aegis of the American
government.
In Africa the economic hegemony of western nations would
spark conflicts in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
the horn of Africa and in the west African region in Liberia
and Sierra Leone. Multitudes would succumb to the ravages of
war and plunder. At the same time the unholy alliance of the
United States and Israel would continue the occupation of
Palestine and the denial of the people of their inherent
right to self-determination.
The continuing economic crisis of US imperialism would lead
them into an disastrous war against Iraq and Afghanistan.
When Haiti should have been celebrating its 200th anniversary
of independence from France, the Americans engineered a
destabilization campaign and the later occupation of this
Caribbean nation.
The concept of pre-emptive war would become the cornerstone
of the new American foreign policy. Permanent war is the
continued theme of the Bush administration. By starving the
African and other oppressed peoples around the world, the US
administration has set war and occupation as vital to its
continued existence.
However, this policy of American aggression and occupation
has been met with mass protest on an unprecedented scale.
Between the spring of 2002 and the summer of 2004, tens of
millions of people in the western capitals in solidarity with
their allies throughout the so-called developing world have
demonstrated their burning desire for world peace and the
total elimination of American hegemony. The peoples of
Afghanisan and Iraq have continued their resistance to these
occupations by the American military and its allies.
Even prior to the occupation of Iraq, on February 15, 2003,
the largest world demonstrations for peace occured. These
demonstrations have continued throughout the course of the
illegal occupation. In Iraq itself the Americans have
suffered nearly 1,500 officially reported deaths, over 27,000
casualties and another 100,000 who will be inflicted for the
rest of their lives with post traumatic stress disorder. All
of this is occuring while the American economy suffers its
worst decline since the great depression.
Marley's message of peace, solidarity and redemption is more
significant today in the 21st century than in any period in
recent history. There can be much inspiration gained from
his lyrics and music. A rejection of crass materialism and
consumerism, the upholding of the right of oppressed peoples
to self-determination, the necessity for solidarity with the
African continent and other developing regions, the continued
struggle for civil and human rights in North America and the
ability of the peoples of Africa to reclaim their historical
identity and social equilibrium is the mandate left by
Marley.
It is most appropriate that the 60th anniversary birthday
commemorations were held in 2005 in Ethiopia. A nation and
region which has been challenged with all of the questions
that the legacy of Marley represents, will be forced to take
notice of the unfinished business of national liberation and
pan-african unity.
Marley therefore continues to speak to us from the grave. His
legacy calls upon today's cultural and political warriors to
emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for no one else can
free our minds. Consequently, we must liberate modern
society from the legacy of slavery, colonialism, racism, war
and apartheid. A new world must be created where humanity
can define itself outside the boundaries of pre-emptive
conflict and the hegemony of a elite minority bent on the
destruction of the planet in the false pursuit of profit and
global hegemony.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the founder and editor of the Pan-African
News Wire. In 2002 Azikiwe was a co-founder the Michigan
Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), an
organization committed to the withdrawl of US troops from
Iraq and Afghanistan. As a broadcast journalist and author,
this activist's articles, opinions and commentaries have been
made available to people throughout the international
community.
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